Description

Grace Kelly by Andy Warhol

Warhol completed this stunning portrait of Grace Kelly only two years after she had died tragically of a stroke in 1982 at the age of 52.

It was a fundraiser for the ICA – (the Institute of Contemporary Art) which was the university museum of Pennsylvania. Warhol always had a soft spot for the ICA. They hosted his first one-man solo show in 1965 which subsequently launched his career as a serious artist. Grace Kelly herself was born in Philadelphia, and her parents were both actively involved at the university – her mother was the first woman to head the Physical Education Department and her father was a gold medalist in sculling.

More than twenty years after his death, Andy Warhol remains one of the most influential figures in contemporary art and culture. Warhol’s life and work inspires creative thinkers worldwide thanks to his enduring imagery, his artfully cultivated celebrity, and the ongoing research of dedicated scholars. His impact as an artist is far deeper and greater than his one prescient observation that “everyone will be world famous for fifteen minutes.” His omnivorous curiosity resulted in an enormous body of work that spanned every available medium and most importantly contributed to the collapse of boundaries between high and low culture.

A skilled social networker, Warhol parlayed his fame, one connection at a time, to the status of a globally recognized brand. Decades before widespread reliance on portable media devices, he documented his daily activities and interactions on his traveling audio tape recorder and beloved Minox 35EL camera. Predating the hyper-personal outlets now provided online, Warhol captured life’s every minute detail in all its messy, ordinary glamour and broadcast it through his work, to a wide and receptive audience.